The Education Trust Falls for the Chivas Regal Effect
One of the pillars of our education establishment, The Education Trust, recently published a report that’s meant to pressure colleges and universities with large endowments into spending more of their…
The University of Chicago’s Support for Free Speech Sparks Opposition
Last month, just before the new academic year began, the University of Chicago’s dean of students, John Ellison, sent a letter (reproduced in this piece) to all incoming students. It…
Political Science Needs More Viewpoint Diversity
Would academic political science benefit from more viewpoint diversity? Let’s start with the good news, which is that political science isn’t nearly the worst-off discipline on campus. This is not…
Student Learning Outcomes and the Decline of American Education
Educational fads always come with a shelf life; the implacable resistance of reality eventually makes them expire. Usually, the promised educational miracle has done more harm than good. The wreckage…
The Freshman Experience: Social Justice Indoctrination and Academic Handholding
It took less than a week into the 2016-2017 academic year for several outrageous stories to surface on college campuses. At the University of Texas at Austin, thousands of students…
UnFree My Campus
Freedom of speech has been under siege at many American colleges and universities. Sometimes the attack comes from aggressive students who can’t stand having others say things they disagree with,…
How American Higher Education Turned into a False Promise
The Department of Education recently proposed new regulations to punish colleges that attract students with misleading claims. But what if the whole system of higher education in America is guilty…
These Professors Are Working to Restore Free Speech on Campus
Four classically liberal professors and an economist named Adam Smith walk into a room. No, this isn’t the beginning of a bad joke; it was the first event of the…
Students Are Moral Relativists: Problem and Solution
The Problem One thing I’ve learned in my years of teaching in the U.S. is that many young Americans are moral relativists. As students in elementary and secondary schools, they…
Faculty Senate Shrugged
Politics is on many people’s minds this year, so this is a good time to write about that topic. But the politics I’m thinking about does not involve the presidency.…